Motorsports Manager Mobile 2 has just landed on iOS and its everything you could want in a race team management game. Check out our full review, here.
There have been a glut of racing games released on the iOS app store in the last month, but the one jumps ahead of all the others is Motorsports Manager Mobile 2 . Landing on the app store late last week, I’ve spent a bingy three or four days deeply entrenched in the world of Grand Prix racing, and can honestly say it’s one of the best mobile racing games I’ve ever played. As the title indicates, players assume the role of a grand prix race team manager where there are an endless decisions to make at every turn that will affect how far your team will go and if you’ll keep yourself financially in the green. Motorsports Manager Mobile 2 has a incredible level of depth, and it’ll take you a couple seasons to realize the ways every decision you make impacts your success.
Motorsports Manager Mobile 2 Gameplay Walkthrough
The beginning of Motorsports Manager 2 starts exactly how you’d expect it to as players are tasked with choosing a team name, car design and their team manager name. You are then taken to the main management screen, where you can take a look at your car, drivers and pit crew. The first season is composed of 10 races you’ll run, all with different track types, which require different driver skills or car tuning setups. Playing through the first season, you’ll feel somewhat overwhelmed by the number of decisions to be made. You are assigned a car, a set of drivers and engineers, plus 10 million dollars to get you going. With those resources in place, you’ll have to decide if you’ll keep things as they are or make tweaks. Players have the option to change their current setup by doing things like purchasing new parts on the market, hiring new engineers or drivers and choosing race sponsors. But within each of these decisions lie even more decisions. For example, parts on the market have a variety of qualities. While one part may improve the car’s overall performance, it might reduce its reliability. In the hands of an inexperienced driver this could have a huge impact on finishing times during races. As a result, there’s a ton of thought behind deciding if a part’s price and race impact are in line with your needs.
Hiring new drivers and engineers is equally complex. With drivers you are given a list of prospects. Each driver profile gives you insight into their specific driving skills along with how much potential they have for growth. If you see a driver that interests you, you must then move into negotiations where you make decisions about the offer you’ll make. Your offer will include what position the driver will hold on the team, length of contract, payment per race and how large the sign on bonus will be. Different drivers have different amounts of patience, so you have to be careful to try to bring your negotiations in line with their expectations or else they’ll turn you down and there will be a cool off period before you can approach them again.
Finally, before racing there will be sponsors to choose, which will provide the money to keep your team afloat. In the beginning, the sponsors to choose from are pretty scant, but as your team’s notoriety grows, you’ll gain more offers. Team performance and the marketability of your individual drivers impact the kind of sponsor offers you’ll receive. Some sponsors will offer money for each race, up-front payments or bonuses for finishing above a specific rank. Players must be careful with how they manage their money as sponsors vary in their generosity depending on team performance and marketability. You need to keep a reserve of money in place not only to cover race expenses when sponsors are scarce, but also for investment into the next season’s vehicle build.
Once you’ve arranged these preliminaries, you’re now ready to start racing, but don’t expect it to be easy. For each race that you run there is a qualifying run and then the actual race. During the qualifying run, you’ll need to inspect the type of track and adjust your vehicles’ tuning to match. If you run a lap and aren't satisfied with the result, players can make further tweaks to the vehicle and run again. Tweaks include things like tuning for cornering or straights with a focus on acceleration, top speed or keeping things neutral. You can also test a variety of tires, though the softest available are generally preferred during qualifying.
After qualifying you move into the real race, and here’s where things get real hairy. You have to plan a strategy for when you’ll pit stop what types of tires you’ll run and whether or not to make repairs to you vehicle based on the number of laps you are running. You have to keep a constant eye on the weather because if things begin to go rainy the strategy completely changes.
Though I haven’t spent a ton of time playing racing management games, Motorsports Manager Mobile 2 is totally mind-blowing with its depth and complexity. The more you play, the more it sucks you in. Though I’m not a racing fan, I found myself completely transfixed by each race.
Beyond the mechanics of the game, Motorsports Manager 2 also includes some interesting nuances that make the game feel more realistic than I expected. Your drivers have personalities which come out in their social media posts. As you run races with them, you’ll see how they grow and change. They can assume different traits depending on how a race went. For example, if you have a racer who was an unknown at the beginning of the year but becomes a runaway star by mid-season, he or she may become a little cocky and disgruntled, hinting at a desire for a new contract.
Motorsports Manager Mobile 2 is available on the Apple App Store for $ 3.99 and in my opinion, it’s totally underpriced for the depth and gameplay life. Though I touched on the main gameplay features, there’s actually quite a bit more to discover in the game like the higher racing tiers and the Young Driver’s programme. While racing game fans will love this offering, we believe anyone who enjoys all kinds of management games will find this one intriguing.
